‘I could die right now’: Vancouver man recalls the night a stranger deliberately set him on fire

Dane Cameron receives treatment after being set on fire in Vancouver on Jan. 13, 2025.

A 29-year-old man who survived a vicious attack outside a Vancouver SkyTrain station is recovering at home, but needs the bandages that cover his body changed every couple of days.

Dane Cameron spent weeks in hospital after someone deliberately set him on fire in the early hours of Jan. 13.

“I started to panic, and I was running around in circles,” Cameron told CTV News.

He recalled the flames spreading, “the sound of it and the rushing of the air,” moments before he began to suffer serious burns.

Cameron tried rubbing his face to put out the flames, but that only made it worse. He remembers people yelling to “drop and roll,” but nobody helped him.

“I didn’t know what else to do. I just let the flames kind of do their thing. I was laying down flat on the ground and I thought, ‘You know, I could die right now,’” he said.

Help finally came when a Good Samaritan who happened to be driving by spotted the flames and pulled over.

“Looked like mostly his front was on fire, so I tried to get him down on his stomach and roll him around,” said Andrew Coulthard, who used Cameron’s coat to put out the fire.

Surgeons took skin from Cameron’s leg to repair the severe damage on his chest. He is taking medication but is in constant pain.

“I’m afraid of going out, especially near where this had happened. There’s this kind of anxiety I have surrounding people,” he said. “It’s illogical, I know, but this trauma that I’ve experienced due to this attack (makes me fear) anyone could be a potential attacker.”

He told CTV News the incident was random, and he still doesn’t know why he was the target.

He was having a conversation outside the Main Street SkyTrain Station when someone poured liquid on his body and set him on fire.

So far, no arrests have been made.